Writing about random topics

Went on a hike to Lake Serene today

Ever since I got the GPS, going hiking has become a lot more fun. I can create a trail ahead of time and upload it to the device, then I can view statistics about the hike afterwards. It’s neat!

Even better, I’ve (almost) gotten the hang of figuring out how much further we have to go to the next point (whether it is a junction, a trailhead, or the end of a hike). The one thing that still annoys me about it is that it takes forever to acquire a signal. Thanks to its lollygagging, we didn’t capture the first 0.6 miles of the hike.

Today we went out to Lake Serene, which is a hike just outside of Goldbar, WA. From our place it takes a little under an hour to get there. Even though it’s June, it’s still cold out and you have to dress for multiple weather conditions – warm, cold and rain.

Today, we had all three. It was warm going up the trail, but cold at the top; I had to put on extra clothes. It also started raining near the top and didn’t stop until we came back down again. The wife and I both got very wet. Indeed, this was the wettest hike I have ever been on (although not the coldest).

Below are the trip statistics:

Hike: Lake Serene Distance: 7.5 miles roundtrip – includes the walk up to the waterfall Elevation Gain: 2000 feet

Below is the Google Earth screenshot. You can also view it in Google Maps but it doesn’t have the trailhead.

Here’s a picture of me by the lake. You can see that there’s still a ton of snow on it:

That picture is deceiving because it looks like the water is just behind me maybe three or four feet. In reality, the water is about 30 feet behind me and I’m about 20 feet above the surface of the water; the rock slopes downward sharply and if you’re not careful (it was raining up there) you can slip and slide down. But because of the angle the picture is taken from, it looks really close.

Here’s a panorama shot of the lake:

Another optional part that is 1/2 mile each way at a junction (you can see on the map above how it breaks off a bit) is the waterfall. We went up there and this was one big waterfall. You can get close to it and water is just spraying everywhere:

I could only stand there for a few moments because the spray coming off of there was drenching me. It doesn’t show up that well in the picture, but trust me, it’s there.